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This week, share an image of your happy place, a secret spot you love, or a faraway location you return to again and again.

There is a garden I never failed to visit each year. It is called The Gardens Of Appeltern in The Netherlands. With over 200 show gardens in 200 acres of grounds, it is difficult not to find something to inspire anyone no matter what one’s personal taste might be. The place is teeming with ideas! There is even an island with room for children to play. It gives them something to escape and explore. And for us adults, gardeners or not, there is something new and different to experience and discover around every corner. But what I like the most is the peacefulness, the serenity that the place gives me. It is possible here to be alone amidst other visitors because there is always some quiet corner you can retreat to if you need to be on your own for a while. I love the place. I love their motto.

“A garden should be one of the pleasures that make life more comfortable, a place where you can relax, work, play, be together with others and enjoy all the good and healthy things in life. A garden is one of the prime necessities of life, a place where you will be happy to spend your time.”

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Last Autumn I was passing by the neighborhood park during one of my daily walks and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they decorated the place with multicolored lights and otherworldly works of art. It had given the place an eerie atmosphere which is far from its usual subdued state. I was amused.

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I once broke into an old abandoned coal mine to see what’s inside. I squeezed myself in between the chainlink fencing and gained access. Once inside, I saw why they prohibited anyone snooping around. The building was so dilapidated some of the walls were crumbling down and the ceiling could fall down any moment. But I love it. I love period, weathered, abandoned, old crumbling properties. They fascinate me. I feel they have interesting stories to tell.

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Last summer I was walking along this (almost) barren coast in Majorca when I encountered these little beauties. And I thought: How they can grow and flourish in this extreme condition?

It was hot, windy, suffocating and dry; so dry, and yet they look as if they are having a good time. I envy their tenacity and perseverance. Tough little angels.

While most of us are struggling to grow anything in almost ideal circumstances with the help of everything available to us, these creatures are happily surviving without help other than what they can find in nature. Perhaps we can learn a thing or two from them. Don’t you think so?

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“I take it as a compliment when somebody calls me crazy. I would be offended if I was one of the sheeple, one of the sleepwalkers in the matrix or part of the collective hallucination we call ‘normal.”

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It’s always nice to see things arranged in a proper order. Easy on the eye. Inviting. Inspiring. Shot worthy. Last Christmas I saw in the Supermarket rows of rows of gift wrapped chocolates. I am not fond of sweets but I can’t help but admire the colourful display. They are so tempting, neatly and appropriately dressed up for the holiday.

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It is Spring and it is difficult to ignore its presence. Nature has a way of announcing each season in a spectacular way. Take for instance these Magnolia and cherries flowers cascading from the trees in abundance. I took these pictures with my phone camera two days ago while taking one of my daily evening walks. Isn’t it fantastic? The flowers are so densely arranged I lost counts. I could stay there forever admiring them, bathing in the subtle aroma of the ephemeral blooms. How I wish it could stay this way but to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven they say.

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THE PAINT IN CHURCHES GETS WORN AWAY QUICKER THAN IN OTHER BUILDINGS. I THINK IT’S THE FRICTION OF THE SOULS. THEY GRIND THEMSELVES AGAINST THE CEILINGS AND WALLS.

IF I COULD REACH FOR SOMETHING BRILLIANT, THAT WOULD BE THE HOME WHICH BEEN DENIED TO ME AND THE PRESENCE OF THE PEACE I'VE NEVER KNOWN...

Why I write

I write to exorcise some ghosts (there are plenty) to make peace with my past, to keep sane, to let skeletons out the closet and occasionally let them dance naked, to vent. I write because I don’t know any better.

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Healology

“Growing up, I always had a soldier mentality. As a kid I wanted to be a soldier, a fighter pilot, a covert agent, professions that require a great deal of bravery and risk and putting oneself in grave danger in order to complete the mission. Even though I did not become all those things, and unless my predisposition, in its youngest years, already had me leaning towards them, the interest that was there still shaped my philosophies. To this day I honor risk and sacrifice for the good of others – my views on life and love are heavily influenced by this.”

― Criss Jami

Musing

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

“I have this strange feeling that I’m not myself anymore. It’s hard to put into words, but I guess it’s like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling.”

- Haruki Murakami

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

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Kindred Spirits

Introversion

“...I also believe that introversion is my greatest strength. I have such a strong inner life that I’m never bored and only occasionally lonely. No matter what mayhem is happening around me, I know I can always turn inward.”

what i’ve been doing…

We were born to be free, to expand our horizons by going where we have never gone before, and not to hang out in the relative comfort and safety of the nest, the known. There is a place within us that is courageous beyond our human understanding; it yearns to explore beyond the boundaries of our daily life.

- Dennis Merritt Jones

Once I had started my solitude, I realized anew that it was easy for me to become accustomed to this state and that the most effortless existence for me was in fact in one in which I was not obliged to speak to anyone. My fretful attitude to life left me. Each dead day had its charm.

- Yukio Mishima

It well may be,
That we will never meet again,
In this lifetime.
So let me say before we part,
So much of me,
Is made of what I learned from you.
You’ll be with me,
Like a handprint on my heart.
And now whatever way our stories end,
I know you have re-written mine,
By being part of my life…

I'm Michelle. This is my blog. I write about women and fatness, expound upon semi-coherent thoughts I have in the middle of the night, and offer tough love to those in whom I am disappointed; they are legion.